By STEVE AYERS
Staff Reporter/Verde Valley Independent

It is at last official.

After almost seven years of work by a number of local volunteers and some determined rangers and staff with the Coconino National Forest, the 7.2-mile extension of the Verde Valley to Payson Mail Trail is now an officially recognized trail.

With that recognition comes some perks -- like money from Washington to make improvements, designation on the Forest Service maps, a real trailhead, and kudos to all involved for a job well done.

The Mail Trail, as it is known, follows the approximate route that riders used to deliver mail between Camp Verde and Strawberry from 1884 to 1914.

There is still work that needs to be done in order to complete it all the way to Payson and perhaps further on to Rye, but the vital center link is now in place.

The segment that passes through Fossil Creek Canyon has been in place for some time, but it has always been missing the portion that extends from Fossil Creek to General Crook's original military wagon trail.

The project began in 1998 when Camp Verde resident Howard Parrish read an article on the last mail rider of the trail, another Camp Verde local named Tuffy Peach.

Parrish knew some of the people mentioned in the article and decided it would be fitting to try finding the old trail and re-establish it for horse riders and backpackers.

After discussing the idea with another Camp Verde resident, Lynn Reddell, who happened to be on the state's trails committee, the two took the idea to Bill Stafford, recreational supervisor for the Coconino National Forest.

It just so happened that Stafford is a historic trails buff and had located the trail a few years earlier with the help of a local ranch foreman.

With a common bond and a common goal, the three set out on the long journey leading to official recognition.

One would think the process would not be too complicated. However, this is the United States of the 21st century, and nothing gets done without clearing a litany of red tape and legal hoops, such as an archaeological study and an environmental impact review.

As luck would have it, the trail meanders through the domain of the endangered Chiracahua leopard frog.

"That turned out to be a major problem and the primary reason it has taken us seven years to get to this point," said Stafford.

However, with Stafford's determination and the sponsorship of the Camp Verde Cavalry (you need a sponsor for such undertakings) the job got done. The trail was tweaked a little to keep the traffic away from the recently rehabilitated (don't ask) population of frogs in the area.

"The trail follows the general route," Parrish said, "in some places we believe it is right in the rider's tracks and in some places not. It's definitely close."

Parrish was originally assisted in locating the old trail be two more Camp Verde residents and descendents of former mail trail riders, Walt Murdock and Walter Cox.

The mail trail started in Camp Verde at the Wingfield store, which for a number of years served as the town's post office.

From there it went south and east of town criss-crossing the Verde River three times and once more across Clear Creek, passing through the formerly thriving metropolis of Rutherford, which was once situated near the confluence of the Verde River and West Clear Creek.

From there it worked its way east to the Crook wagon trail and followed its tracks up to Mud Tanks Mesa.

It was at Mud Tanks that the trail left the wagon road and headed south to Fossil Creek Canyon. This is the portion Parrish, Stafford, Reddell, et al, just reinstated.

The riders would cross Fossil Creek Canyon where they changed horses and then go up around Nash Point and downhill into Strawberry. They would then go on to Pine and follow Sycamore Creek, cross the East Verde and go on from there to Payson and, if necessary, on to Rye.

The route of the trail, according to research done by the Coconino National Forest, follows the path of an abandoned military trail that ran between Fort Verde and Camp Reno in the Tonto Basin. The military used the trail between the late 1860s and the mid 1870s.

In the early reconnaissance of the trail Murdock noted that this was the "summer mail trail." The riders also used a winter route that went through Hackberry Basin, Salley May Wash, Hardscrabble Mesa and on to Strawberry.

The first mail route into the Verde came by way of Prescott in 1873. It was not until 1884, when a post office was established in Payson (formerly Union Park), that the route was extended to the east.

According to several sources, it took the riders 11 to 18 hours to make the 50-mile one-way trip, leaving the Wingfield Store at 2 a.m.

The length of the ride and time it took was dependent on who had mail, what it was and the amount of snow, rain or swollen rivers the rider had to contend with.

Many of the details about riding the mail trail come from Tuffy Peach, whose real name was Clinton Calloway Peach, the last rider and another Camp Verde resident, though he was originally from Strawberry.

Peach said he often had so much mail slung over the saddle horn he could hardly see the trail ahead. When the mail load got too big, as was the case when the Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs came out, he would enlist the assistance of a pack mule.

Delivering the mail was a very different business then than what it is today. Although he was not supposed to, Peach often delivered other sundry items to cowboys and ranches in the remote canyons under the rim.

His daily load would often include items such as spools of thread, medications and more often than not, whiskey. It was a service Tuffy says he never charged for.

He would make the run three times a week, working for room and board plus a dollar a day.

He says he was only stopped one time from completing the run. One time a summer storm sent boulders and trees cascading down Fossil Creek. He turned back to Strawberry and waited for the water to settle down. He was concerned his horse might get hurt.

Tuffy Peach rode a horse until he was 80 and lived to be 90.

He is no longer here to share his stories, but thanks to some good people who believe in what the past can teach us, his legacy, and that of those who blazed the route before him, will live on in the tracks of the trail they all once rode.

A group of Camp Verde residents and Forest Service employees have been working for the last month on marking the trail route. That work is expected to be completed by mid-September. Shortly thereafter, the Forest Service will begin developing the trailhead, which will be located at the FR9247B turn off on Arizona 260 at mile marker 239, approximately.